Our YDSOA Poll for 2/26 is different from some of the other questions we've asked. Here, we are interested in the type of career you are planning to pursue in the fields of Informatics or Data Science. Feel free to expand on your response below!

Just saw that Wake Forest has a bunch of masters programs that will accept the MCAT instead of the GRE. Check it out below:
http://graduate.wfu.edu/admissions-required-tests/
Also went ahead and edited Eli's post.

Hello everyone, it's been a while since we've posted any new announcements with regard to the site!
2017 was an exciting year for YDSOA! We moved away from our old blog format and shifted into the current community setting. Additionally, we have seen heavy increases in traffic the site has received, and our search engine rankings. Although our community forums haven't been as active as we'd like, we were fortunate enough to gain over 100 new members since our launch, to bring the total amount of members of YDSOA up to 186! We also had a lot of great discussions going on as well!
We have many goals for the new year that we hope can take YDSOA to the next level and improve the user experience. They include the following:
We're going to be condensing the amount of forum categories we have, especially the ones that saw the least amount of activity.
Currently, our most active social media account is Facebook, and we will continue to use it as our main social account. We will soon phase out our Twitter and Instagram accounts. My personal Twitter account will be used to post updates about our site, and about topics regarding Data Science and Informatics.
We will be updating our blog structure and adding more content. This will also include editing older posts that may have outdated information.
We will be discontinuing our Graduate School Database and putting more of an emphasis on general graduate school discussions.
We will be releasing our new site feature called YDSOA Jobs sometime in mid March.
We are looking to implement a brand new site design and homepage.
That's the gist of things that are in store. We thank everybody who joined YDSOA in 2017 and look forward to all the new members and great discussions in store!

I know of two people in my current Ph.D. Program who attended another program for a year, realized it wasn't a good fit, and decided to leave. Both of them were still able to receive multiple admissions from other universities and are now very happy with their current situation. Obviously, the biggest con is you're potentially going to have to sit out some time from school while you apply elsewhere. However, some programs admit students in the Fall and Spring, which means less time away.

Those are some excellent points! That was one of the hardest things for me as well, trying to figure out what subjects I should prioritize first. Should it be computer programming/science, biological sciences or mathematics? The lab I ended up joining for my masters focused on computer science, so I spent most of my time there. Now at the Ph.D. level, a lot of the labs focus on tool development rather than implementation, and it's made me go back to try to become an even better programmer.
It definitely is a never-ending cycle of reevaluating where you are at, and what you need to do to make it to the next step. However, this challenge is also what has made Bioinformatics so rewarding!

I posted this article over on my personal site (https://basilkh.com). It's an article describing how you can use social media to help you in your professional field! Check it out and let me know what you guys think:
https://basilkh.com/use-social-media-stay-ahead-field/

Hi there,
Sorry nobody has replied to this! I would reach out the program coordinator of the program and ask them about this. I am sure you are not the only person who has lots of research experience, but no publications. Don't let this be a deterrent for you applying just yet.

Thought this was interesting and relevant to this section. A platform that is used by called Splunk many tech companies is now going to start incorporating artificial intelligence. The people behind Splunk state that by incorporating artificial intelligence, they are able to improve operations by:
Check out the full article below!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/09/26/new-tool-uses-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence-to-improve-it-operations/#6c7f1ba63789

Can't answer this question directly, but I will say, I personally did my undergraduate and masters degree at the same university, and am doing my Ph.D somewhere else. It's been great having the opportunity to explore another college and break out of my comfort zone.

As a Bioinformaticians or Computational Biologist, what are some issues that you have faced early on in your career? This could range from issues with programming, issues with software, issues with algorithms, and even issues with biological questions/ideas.